The Kingdom on the Waves Read online

  Then all the orishas see she leave Shango, and they come and love her, and say to her, “You with me,” “Ki! You with me!” And she be tricked, and lose her ears, put them in a soup, and she be tricked, and lose her hair, and must has to wear a great wig, straw wig, and always, the orishas want her. Orisha arms reach for take her. Orisha mouths try for kiss her. Orishas all around her.

  Then all the orisha, they quiet, because a noise in the forest. Out of that forest, out of that forest come Sonponna, orisha of the smallpox, wrap in red cloth. No body see him face, him hair hang down over him lips. He carry him arrow. He carry him red club. Dogs come with him and wind and devils with whips. He don’t say nothing to Oshun. He take she hand — no word — and he take she throat, and the other orishas, they watch.

  He start for lead her back to the forest.

  Then, the other orishas, they talk loud: The medicine orisha grab she arm and say she his, he save her from Sonponna; and the orisha of [Here Olakunde sought a word of me.] fate — the fate orisha, he grab she arm and say, “You come with me, and nothing ever change. I tell you all the thing that going happen,” and Eshu, the orisha of changes, he meets she on the crossroads, and he say, “You come with me, and everything change, all games, all tricks,” and one orisha on she left, and another orisha on she right, and orisha in the tree, and orisha in the dirt, and all for to hold her, all for to kiss her, all for to make they children.

  And Oshun, this beautiful Oshun, she can only see eyes. She can only hear they shouting. So mighty palaver. In every place.

  She don’t say no word. She tired. Oshun tired of they eyes, the orisha eyes. She tired of they hands, the orisha hands. She tired of they mouths. She leave them orishas. She take off her hair. She go down to Oyo town.

  Oshun leave the orishas; she tired, oh, very tired, tired. Oshun lie down and become a river. She rest in that river. Last thing, she close she eyes and rest.

  Oshun, now she still a river, run through Oyo City. Every body can touch she hand, but no body can hold it. Every body can touch she hair, but no body can take it. Every body be in her body, but no body be in her body. She go on past. A thousand years now, she done run through Oyo City.

  And the Oyo girls, they sit by that river now, and they looks at it for they mirror and sees them selfs. They laugh, them girls, they laugh in the river, and they fix they hair for beauty. They want for be just like Oshun.

  Thus, Olakunde’s tale of the Venus of his people; of my mother’s people; of my own. I wonder whether she knew this tale, and if she knew it, whether she told it to herself as she lay upon that pallet, requesting fairy tales of me; while in the house, Mr. Gitney, infatuated, prepared his fatal treatments.

  I wonder if she knew this tale.

  January 24th, 1776

  Last night, a relapse by three of our mending number; they are taken again with a new fever. There is a great fear that one fever hath become the avenue for a second — and that this new fever is a greater one. I am afraid for myself and for all of us.

  Miss Nsia says that upon other ships, men have died. They have been laid to rest in the river, without ceremony, in the dead of night, lest the enemy perceive our weakness and rally in their own sickness to strike us while we ail.

  January 25th, 1776

  Dr. Trefusis hath arrived today on the boat with the women, clutching his wet, torn letter of passage, that he might come below and inquire after my health, which he heard was not of the soundest.

  I averred that I mended, though others sicken. Now there are ten of us here upon these mats and the flock-bed of sickness, which stinks most revoltingly of our illness.

  He and Bono sat by my side, though clearly their senses were assaulted by the noisome sheets and the breath of myself and those around me. Bono hath been highly solicitous of my health, showing me all the kindnesses of which he is capable.

  “Bono hath informed me,” said Dr. Trefusis, “that you met with a young drummer of Oyo. I trust the discourse was fruitful?”

  Being exhausted, I knew not what to answer.

  “He asked him about Princess Cass,” said Bono. “They talked a real long time.”

  There was, at the mention of her name, a silence among us; none wished to speak, as would further words disturb her lingering spirit.

  I said to Bono, “You will perhaps accept my apologies for my deception.”

  Bono nodded; then shook his head. He offered no absolution, nor any rancor.

  He asked, “You ever going to tell me that story? You want to tell me how she . . . ? You wish to . . . I would be gratified to know.”

  Dr. Trefusis shifted uneasily, little relishing the discomfort this inquiry occasioned.

  To Bono, I said, “I will tell you now.”

  “It would,” admitted Dr. Trefusis, “perhaps be salutary for you to recount it.”

  And so I began.

  I have heard others’ stories and recorded them in these pages; there is no need to animadvert to my own. Though Bono had, it transpired, heard the general outline some days before from my tutor, this was our first true rehearsal of its particulars and the stripping away of the lie I had told him when first we met at Great-Bridge; and so, again, she danced the minuet in Canaan and she fell; she lay sickening; she demanded fairy tales from Ovid; she was practiced upon by the ineffectual cruelties of the scientists, heated and cooled; and at last, expired.

  Dr. Trefusis listened to us both; and Bono asked the questions he wished to know.

  He posed a few inquiries with anger to Dr. Trefusis, demanding to be told of who conceived of that grim — I write it — that grim autopsy.

  Dr. Trefusis allowed as it was Mr. Sharpe; and protested that he himself had argued against it in the strongest possible terms, but that Mr. Sharpe would not be turned from his path, and Mr. Gitney’s spirits were sunk too low, his mind too dejected, for resistance.

  When the story was complete, Bono appeared harrowed and gray.

  “Tell me, sir,” said I to Dr. Trefusis, “tell me of her youth.”

  “I know nothing of it,” said he, “save what she told you.”

  “When she first appeared at the College.”

  “I was not in residence there at that time,” said he. “I know only that she was big with you and spake almost no English.”

  “When,” I asked, “was she discovered for a princess?”

  “As soon as she could make herself understood by her captors.”

  “By which term you intend Mr. Gitney.”

  “He was indeed her captor,” said Dr. Trefusis. “As was I, later. As were we all who resided there. Though Mr. Gitney owned her until the end.”

  “No one owned her,” said Pro Bono. “No one could ever own her.”

  Dr. Trefusis concurred. “Your mother walked with the stars in her hair. The rest of our company squatted around her and picked out equations in mud.” Smiling with melancholy, said he, “‘Rara avis in Terris, nigroque simillima Cycno.’”4

  4 “A rare bird upon the Earth, not unlike a black swan.”— Juvenal, Satire VI [Editor’s note]

  When he had gone, Pro Bono lay with his head back against the planks. “Prince O.,” he said carefully, “I heard a story.”

  I asked him to relate it.

  He said that Aina, the cook, had told it him; and that she had heard it from another woman who had lived at the College of Lucidity before Bono had come to reside there.

  “I vowed to myself I wouldn’t tell it you. I thought I never should. Prince O. . . .”

  I begged him tell me; but he betrayed some confusion. He would not relate the story; he says he shall when I am well, when I am strong. One final story which he knows.

  And so, with trepidation, I await my full recovery.

  January 27th, 1776

  Dr. Trefusis again this day.

  He inquired after my health, and being told that I mended, he was satisfied.

  “Sir,” said I, “I am still apprehensive of my health, lest this new fever sprin
g into the place vacated by the old.”

  With some discomfort, he looked upon me, and replied, “Thou hast nought to fear.”

  “The men around me are all afflicted,” said I.

  He placed his hand upon my brow. “Rejoice,” said he, “for that is not thy lot.”

  I could not comprehend his assurance.

  “You cannot fall ill of this new disease,” said he. He placed his hand now upon my hand. It may well be imagined, the sensations I underwent when he told me, “It is the smallpox.”

  January 28th, 1776

  More have fallen prey to fevers this day. We receive reports of other ships in the fleet where the illness is much more advanced upon the people; the sores have appeared upon some.

  We await this unwelcome development.

  I ate a full supper this day, and my head is again clear. The others who have shared my pallet these last days worsen. I pray God they may be delivered of the worst of the disease.

  Today a word from Slant, delivered by Pomp, as Slant will no longer approach the flock-bed of sickness. Pomp came to my side, and said just, “Slant ain’t had it.”

  In that, a world of anguish. I watch him down the length of the ship; he grimaces and works his fingers backwards and cannot sit; and none of us can walk about, or breathe any air untainted.

  January 29th, 1776

  I resumed my usual hammock last night. I am embarrassed by my health.

  Slant’s anxiety is awful to observe.

  “Is it . . . by breath?” he asks, jaw working.

  I own that such is not known; but that indeed, the scholars of the College believed the disease was caused by the inhalation of truculent animalcula.

  Pomp asked I explain myself; which I did, but it was no comfort to Slant. He looked up and down the deck at the folded and stricken bodies; and he said, “When does a body know he has it?”

  I answered miserably that the disease hath a period of quiescence before it blooms.

  “You mean it might . . . already be in me?”

  “I am sure you are uninfected,” said I.

  “How long it take?” asked Slant. “To . . . show?”

  “Two weeks,” said I. “With us, it waited two weeks.”

  He shook his head and covered his eyes with the heels of his hands. Pomp begged him to rally, for there was no cause yet for uneasiness; but Slant merely whispered, “I may be dead already.”

  I look with Slant’s eyes down the length of this dark hold, and I see men involved in speech and exhalation. Any word releasing breath might be the sentence of death; any word inhaled, be it “is,” or “sweet,” or “the.” I see soldiers conversing in the gloom. Their every phrase is embroidered upon a flag, as in satirical sketches; but the letters cannot be read, for they are not of our alphabet, but of the speech of the dying; and we fear to know who next shall con its lessons.

  January 31st, 1776

  This day, Bono’s revelation. There is nought but this to report; nought to consider. I approached him; I inquired. He wished to wait. I importuned. Some hours passed. We ate. He came to my side.

  He inquired as to whether I remembered Beth, a fille de chambre at the College in my infancy, though in that time, called Miss 22-05. I replied that I did not remember her name, but recalled her number, and that she was a pleasant woman of perhaps two-score years.

  “She spake the tongue of Oyo,” said Bono. “Your mother, she cried when she was first come to the house, and Miss 22-05, she comfort her.” He relucted to continue; and yet, I waited, and so he continued.

  He related —

  There is no virtue in concealment. When the earth is rendered chaos, regulations of speech and propriety are rendered impotent, just as city may become desolate, and street, battleground, and flesh may become fire.

  O Lord, we are vile; have mercy upon us — have mercy upon us —

  Or rather, have no mercy upon us — none at all — but bring the full arsenal of Thy savagery to bear upon us and extinguish us utterly — for there is no one worthy in Thy sight.

  As Bono heard the story: In my mother’s first days in the house when a girl, she could not cease weeping, not yet having assumed the terrifying reserve and governing dignity which were her portion; and in those days, finding that Beth spake her tongue and offered a bosom to cry upon, my mother, whose name was still Morenike, had recounted through her tears that quanquam in nave tanquam pælex designata ut nautas lascivientes satisfaceret. Repugnavit, quisque eam stupravit cæteris spectantibus.

  Quae facinora Deus avertat! Quam sordidum animal est homo! Tuam misericordiam non peto, Domine, sed potius precor ut iratum nobis omnibus te præbeas. Nos penitus everte, Domine, tanquam tui aspectus indignos.5

  5 “. . . upon the ship, she had been selected as a concubine to satisfy the lusts of the sailors. She had resisted, and they had fallen upon her, each committing his indignity in the sight of the others. God forbid such atrocities! How vile a creature is Man! I do not ask Thee for mercy, O Lord, but that Thou turn upon us the full savagery of Thy wrath. Destroy us utterly, O Lord, for we are unworthy in Thy sight.” [Editor’s translation]

  It was shortly after this revelation to Beth that my mother announced her royalty and prevailed upon the philosophers to train her and her son as royalty should be trained; and within three more months, she did not speak to Beth at all, save to deliver her commands.

  She was a child; and I am her senior by four years or five.

  She was the daughter of a King in Oyo, and stood in her father’s train before the great stool of the Alafin, clad in precious raiment; or she was a girl in a village undistinguished by royalty, a place by a river, her father a herdsman.

  She was snared by an invading army as her city burned and men fell beneath the spear, taken to the coast in a long coffle of her playmates; or she was taken by guile in the woods, men who lured her too far from her village for her screams to be heard; or she was sold for some debt or some forfeit; any of these.

  She was given over to the European slavers at Whydah, and well may I imagine her terror at her embarkation — the grins of the white devils so oft described to me by those who, until that glimpse upon the ships, had never seen such pallor except on some few uncannies as had been touched by spirits.

  She was imprisoned for some time at the island fortress of B—; I cannot venture any more speculation upon the rigors in that dungeon, except to aver that the perfume of flowers, the gallantry of the harpsichord — those two things she spake of most in connection to that vile place — were never smellt nor heard there, deep within those vaults of stone.

  She was taken upon a ship, the Incontrovertible, Captain Julian McFergus, Master, for whom I prayed, by her instruction, many nights. I wonder now at these prayers: for mayhap in the course of that voyage he interrupted the indignities practiced upon her person; or — and this I fear to name — mayhap he was captain of her woes, and she bade me pray for him, that the villain might be scathed by her kindness, that he might be reformed by her sardonic benisons, cast at him night after night from a distance of leagues and years.

  Assaulted, imprisoned, taken forever from her family, that fount of all comfort, abandoned by her gods — doubtless sick — wretched — enchained — and then —

  I saw her now arrived at Boston, she but a girl of thirteen years, a child with a child showing in the womb — Morenike, I shall put my arm around thee and lead thee as a brother might his trembling sister —

  Taken to that strange house — her spirits disordered from months, seasons, perhaps a year of calamity and uncertainty — who may tell the secrets of that bosom — what clash? — she at once an object of universal despicience and awful desire — cast down and yet, by motherhood, made the center of another being’s petty world — beset upon by shame and by pride — by anger and hatred — by fear — allowed no identity conferred by parent, village, or local god —

  What matters it if she concocted some girlish story of royalty? What signifieth it, if it
be childish lies? Who shall hold her accountable, given these tumults, for pleading her belly to delay the fall of the terrible sentence?

  If it was an imposture, it was perhaps a blessing that she could not at first speak the tongue of her captors excellently, for I suspect, had she been capable of running out some whole tale at once, she had been detected; but instead, she learned the tongue as she learned how to play upon the susceptibilities of those around her; and taught herself the tale she needed to tell, truth or no.

  I see the years draw on, and she gains in fortitude and dignity; learns to cast off any memory of that past, with its perilous glimpses of nightmare (the stone of the basalt crypts, the shrieking of lamentation); either thinks not upon the years before her abduction, or plays them out upon a stage so buried in the ventricles of the brain that it never can be detected; and her attentions are drawn to fine gowns and the addresses of people of the first quality. She is procured lush wigs of white hair from pensioners’ homes in Prague, and moves her hoops with such delicacy that a countess might envy her.

  There is much which remains closed to me. Perhaps I shall never know whether she felt the tenderest of affections for Lord Cheldthorpe, or simply dissembled; and perhaps she knew not herself, for acquisition and station are delightful; offered riches and ease, who would not love? I shall never divine what passed between them, how adoring or how calculated; but it requires little insight to appreciate her fury at his insults, and the defiance with which she battered at him — delivering us, after all her efforts, into common slavery.

  For many years, once I was sensible that she exaggerated or fabricated the tales she told me, I bore the humiliation of this mark of her disesteem. “Recall,” she would say to me, “that you are a prince”; and I began to doubt her reiterations and resent her impostures — the tales of orchid thrones and panther steeds. “Tell me one true thing,” I demanded at her extremity.